Police are investigating a rollover crash east of High River that killed a man and sent a woman to hospital in critical condition on Tuesday morning.
Emergency crews were called to Highway 23, about 10 kilometres east of Highway 2, at about 9:15 a.m. for reports of a single vehicle rollover.
“Upon arrival, two people had been ejected from the vehicle, one male, one female, both appear to be early 40s, but at this time we still don’t have any identification on them,” said RCMP Sgt. Ryan Dlin.
A 47-year-old man from Vulcan was pronounced dead at the scene and a woman was taken to Foothills Medical Centre by STARS in critical condition.
“EMS did a fantastic job with the assistance of fire. They worked on him for probably an hour trying to bring him back. Unfortunately, due to his injuries, they weren’t able to,” said Dlin.
Police believe speed was likely a factor in the crash and say it doesn’t appear that the occupants were wearing seatbelts at the time.
“We’re basing that on some eye witnesses that they felt the vehicle was travelling at excessive speeds. This location, there are those sharp S-curves, it is an 80 km/hr zone and the witnesses believe the vehicle was far in excess of that 80 km/hr,” said Dlin. “Early indications show the vehicle was westbound, entered the ditch and then rolled upwards of six times. It doesn’t appear that either occupant were wearing seatbelts.”
Investigators found several licence plates at the scene and are working to determine if the vehicle was newly purchased or if it was being rebuilt.
“There’s about four different licence plates with the vehicle, coming back to various vehicles so we’re not sure if the person just purchased this vehicle and didn’t have it registered and that’s being a little bit tricky to try and confirm and who the actual owner is,” Dlin said. “They don’t belong to this vehicle.”
A collision analyst was called out to the scene and the cause of the crash is under investigation.
